Sales to comic stores continued their recent bullish trend in April, with periodical sales up 12% and graphic novels up 44% over the previous year.Although the graphic novel number only reflects sales of the Top 100 titles and is a less valuable proxy for the market as a result, the size of the jump in graphic novel sales is significant, with the total dollars of the Top 100 graphic novels the second largest number ever, behind October of last year by a hair.

Civil War and Civil War: Initiative account for a major percentage of sales of both comic periodicals and graphic novels this month.By our estimate, Civil War (including Fallen Son) and Civil War: Initiative titles totaled 13% of periodical comic sales in May, and 22% of sales on the Top 100 Graphic Novels.